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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24232366">Of Mites and Warriors</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning'>I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bugs &amp; Insects, Choking on Lung Tissue, Deathfic, Dying with an Audience, Fear of losing Sight, Gen, Liquefying Lung, Mercy Killing, Obi-Wan and Satine are 20, Pre-Pacifist Satine, non-sexual nakedness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:00:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,217</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24232366</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Year on Mandalore ends early in horror as the venom-mites prove lethal.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze, Qui-Gon Jinn &amp; Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn &amp; Satine Kryze</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>105</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Of Mites and Warriors</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Obi-Wan and Satine are 20 years old, here.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>Obi-Wan returned to awareness to find himself bound to something tall and round. There was something wrong with his vision, and the Force felt strange, like his hands were wrapped in cotton as he tried to pick up something tiny.</p>
<p>He tried to bring the Force to bear on the chains, but it didn't work.</p>
<p>Fingers brushed against his. He turned his head, the back of his skull finding another skull behind the post.</p>
<p>“Obi,” murmured Satine, “I need you to be brave. We're going to die.”</p>
<p>Adrenaline surged through Obi-Wan's blood, ire and rebellion. “No.” He squinted, trying to see through the mist in his sight. His head burned where he'd been struck, and he felt a sudden fear there might be something wrong with his eyes.</p>
<p>They seemed to be trapped at the bottom of something, a large hole bored in rock, or something of the sort.</p>
<p>“I already tried to break us free, and they drugged you. If there's one thing we know how to do—”</p>
<p><em>It's kill Jedi. </em>Fury roiled up in the padawan's guts.</p>
<p>“I don't want to die here,” he hissed, yanking against the chains, each jar sending pain through his body without any measurable benefit. It made him realize something, though. “Are we— <em>naked</em>? <em>Why?</em>”</p>
<p>“Venom mites. What's the point if you don't get to <em>see </em>the poison crawling in our skin<em>?</em>”</p>
<p>Obi-Wan thrashed again, panic clawing up his throat.</p>
<p>“Obi,” Satine's voice soothed as her fingers hooked around his scrabbling fingers. “Kuur. They're watching from above and recording. My family will see this. Your master will see this. Our lives may be forfeit, but our pride is ours to keep.”</p>
<p>Obi-Wan watched as the ground seemed to crawl, specs scuttling towards them.</p>
<p>
  <em>Oh gods— Master!</em>
</p>
<p>Obi-Wan tried not to think of the man they'd seen who'd been bit.</p>
<p>
  <em>Please— anything but—</em>
</p>
<p>He caught a glimpse of a desert and cold sterile halls, a crimson blade wielded by someone he loved shearing through his heart—</p>
<p><em>Yes, </em>anything<em> but this—</em></p>
<p>He tried to focus, tried to instill fear in the mites, and when that did not work, disinterest. Closer the insects drifted.</p>
<p>He gathered all his strength, tried to sweep them back—</p>
<p>A sad little bundle scooted backwards by a meter, the rest not touched at all.</p>
<p>His next attempt turned more desperate and lethal as he tried to kill them, but with his mind so fuzzy, his senses so dulled, though he felt tiny deaths tolling in the Force, the number was so few at a time that the impact wasn't even visible.</p>
<p>
  <em>Master!</em>
</p>
<p>Pressure from the cold fingers stilled him, though breath still heaved from terror and rebellion.</p>
<p>“I don't want to die <em>here</em>,” he repeated. Not for something as meaningless as these cruel beings' caprice. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. Better to have blown up on Bandomeer, for Qui-Gon. Better to have fallen riddled with bolts for Cerasi, on Melida/Daan. Better to die <em>for</em> Satine, than—</p>
<p>Obi-Wan's panic silenced. He gazed at the onrushing creatures, and tried to <em>feel </em>them.</p>
<p>Simple enough.</p>
<p>Hunger. Desperate hunger— starvation level.</p>
<p>There was the rock entrapping the colony— inedible, and there was food.</p>
<p>They honed in not by sight or scent, but...</p>
<p>
  <em>By the Force.</em>
</p>
<p>Obi-Wan's eyes rolled up in his head as he tried to conceal himself and Satine in the Force, to mimic rock.</p>
<p>No breath, no blood, no desire, stone.</p>
<p>He heard the skitters.</p>
<p><em>Not enough.</em> <em>They know food was last here.</em></p>
<p><em>So maybe I don't die for </em>them.</p>
<p>
  <em> For her?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> I'm sorry, Master, it should have been for you. I always meant for it to be you, someday.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> But this is better than for nothing.</em>
</p>
<p>He stopped trying to stretch his shielding over them both, and instead focused all his attention on concealing Satine.<br/>
“Sat'ika,” Obi-Wan whispered, his voice calm, no longer desperate. An eerie peace settled around him, the Force felt so very near, even if he couldn't wield it well here at the end. He tried to press his fingers harder against her fingers. “I need you to be brave. You're going to live.”</p>
<p>It was merely a tickle across the top of his foot, the arrival of the wave.</p>
<p>His lips parted and he braced for agony as he tipped his head back against the stake.</p>
<p>
  <em>There is no death, there is only the Force.</em>
</p>
<p>He could feel its truth as the pain began, as his already blurred vision twisted still further. He looked up to the sky, the beautiful sunset and a green blade, flaring harsh and swift.</p>
<p>He would get there in time.</p>
<p>A smile ghosted across Obi-Wan's lips even as anguish tore up from his lungs in sounds that horrified even the one making them, Satine yelling at him to stop whatever bedevilry he was about, to allow her to face her end well.</p>
<p><em>You did, </em>he thought, clinging to her fingers as fire crawled through his blood and his lungs began to come undone. <em>But now it's my turn.</em></p>
<p>He experienced a moment of disorientation when he found himself lying on his back on the ground without any understanding of how he'd gotten there. A blur leaned over him, long hair, huge hands, the cold of metal against his chest.</p>
<p>Paste that had been his lung tissue slid from Obi-Wan's mouth, and the foaming of his tissues clogged his esophagus.</p>
<p><em>H-how long? </em>He tried to ask over the bond. How long would it take?</p>
<p>
  <em>Not much longer. I will make it stop. I am sorry, my Padawan. So proud— my son.</em>
</p>
<p>Warmth seeped into the cooling heart. Qui-Gon was <em>proud</em>? Of <em>him</em><em>?</em></p>
<p>
  <em>Goodbye, my Obi-Wan.</em>
</p>
<p>The metal against his chest shifted.</p>
<p><em>Thank you, </em>Obi-Wan tried to send. Better a swift end by a loving hand, than to linger—</p>
<p> </p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>“You did </em>what<em>?”</em> the hologram of Mace Windu demanded.</p>
<p>Qui-Gon stood with his head bowed, staring down at the saber he held clutched in his hands.</p>
<p>
  <em>I stained my kyber crystal, my life, with my Obi-Wan's blood.</em>
</p>
<p>“Master Jinn acted with honor and mercy toward his companion, granting him a more noble end than my kinsfolk intended. Had Master Jinn not stepped up, I would have granted Padawan Kenobi such mercy myself.”</p>
<p>
  <em>You had nothing with you. You would have killed him with your bare hands.</em>
</p>
<p>Qui-Gon stole a glance at the young warrior, who stood engulfed in Qui-Gon's robe.</p>
<p>It was a mistake, because it allowed his gaze to fall upon the corpse.</p>
<p>Skin a waxy white, veins purple, the hideous pink of lung staining his lip and cheek, his lower half concealed by Qui-Gon's outer tunic, but the garment was not one that could also hide the burn.</p>
<p>The glint of bone through the hole, the bubbled skin around it—</p>
<p>
  <em>The one part about this that did not hurt him.</em>
</p>
<p>It was swift.</p>
<p>And the thought of Satine Kryze taking Obi-Wan's head in her hands and snapping his neck...</p>
<p>
  <em>Added moments of fear and dread, recognition of what was coming.</em>
</p>
<p>Qui-Gon found he was grateful Obi-Wan had not felt that brand of helplessness in his ending.</p>
<p>A tear slipped down his cheek.</p>
<p>
  <em>Farewell, Obi-Wan. Satine's alternative almost makes me forgive myself for what I did to you, but I will never forgive myself for bringing you here.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Sleep well.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
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